Get Your Post-Production Team Video Editing From a Synology DS2419+II NAS
If you’re reading this then the likelihood is that you either came from my article on the best Synology NAS for video editing or that your storage needs have outgrown swapping around external drives and you need your team to all be working from one source.
Well, you’re in luck!
This article is going to show you the ins and outs of the Synology DS2419+II and how it could transform your post-production teams efficiency and ultimately, boost their creativity.
Formfactor
The Synology DS2419+II is the last of my desktop form NAS enclosures in the ‘Best Synology NAS for Video Editing’ article. However, just because it is a desktop NAS doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily small in its build.
With 12 bays this enclosure will definitely take up some worktop space and it will also kick out a bit of noise and heat too. So storing this away from your post-production team would be highly recommended to stop them from being distracted by the noise while editing.
That being said because it is a desktop form NAS enclosure it does mean you don’t need a comms cabinet to rack mount this NAS and it can be a standalone device.
Once you get above 12 bays you are definitely looking at a rackmount form NAS (actually there are many 12 bay NAS’ that are in the form of a rackmount unit).
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Hardware
Ok, so we know this unit can take 12 disk drives to fill all bays but what are the core components that it utilizes?
The DS2419+II is the latest iteration of the already successful DS2419. With each iteration come some slightly boosted specs.
The Intel Atom (C3538) CPU is a quad-core 2.1GHz that gives plenty of juice for multiple read and write operations and simultaneous tasks that this NAS could be pt through on a daily basis. It comes with 4GB of DDR4 RAM as standard but this is configurable up to 32GB (16GB x2) and I would highly recommend that you do that to really get the most out of your NAS, especially if you have upwards of 6 users accessing and utilizing this NAS at any one time.
Note. Always check for compatibility before buying and installing RAM.
16GB of Synology SODIMM Unbuffered ECC 2666Mhz RAM. Always check compatibility with your NAS before purchasing and installing.
Ports
As with all of the Synology enclosures I have looked at in detail so far (the DS720+ and the DS920+) the DS2419+II comes with the standard RJ45, USB and expansion ports.
However, the DS2419+II is a little different from the others in that it has four RJ45 1GbE LAN ports, which you can bond together to create a shared 4GbE connection (speeds still limited to 1Gbps but you get four 1Gbps shared by your network users). You also get two USB 3.2 ports for connecting any external media you may which to attached to the NAS.
The expansion port I will come on to a little bit later.
If you are looking at this NAS for more than 4 users who will be wanting to access and edit 4K footage in real-time then you will need to look at adding in the dedicated 10GbE network card for the NAS and upgrading your network and computers for a 10GbE workflow. I’ve got more on the network card below and for the network upgrade check out this dedicated article around the subject here:
Drive Bays
Now, with 12 drive bays to fill the DS2419+II is not going to leave you short of storage space.
If you were to fill each bay with a 16TB drive and not set any RAID configuration, you could have 192TB of storage at your disposal. However, that’s not my recommendation for anyone looking at filling this NAS. I highly recommend setting a RAID level for failure tolerance, which I’ll get on to just below.
There may also be some of you who are thinking that maybe some of those drives might be needed for an SSD cache but that is not the case with the DS2419+II as it has its own SSD cache facility via a built-in PCIe slot that can take a 10GbE network card, M.2 expansion card or the new Synology E10M20-T1, which does both. I’ll explain more on that below.
RAID Levels
Now that we are into the 4+ drive bay NAS enclosure world the RAID configurations start to change and we have more options available to us.
I explain more about RAID setups in the detailed Synology NAS video editing article but essentially you should think of RAID as a way of substituting storage space for drive failure backup. Drives can and do fail (I’ve had it happen) and being prepared is the best thing you can do to protect your data. The last thing you want is to lose all your data in the middle of a client project with no way of getting it back.
Note. RAID is a great failure tolerance measure but you should also have an off-site backup in place in case of total NAS failure.
The amount of storage space you need to sacrifice and the number of drives you can have fail before losing data are determined by the RAID level structure. With this 12 bay NAS, I’d highly recommend you look at RADI 5 or RAID 6.
RAID 5 would give you 176TB of working storage, based on 12x16TB disks, with 11x read speed increase and the ability to lose 1 drive without data loss.
RAID 6 on the other hand would give you 160TB of working storage space, with 10x read speed increase but with the ability to lose up to 2 drives before data loss.
Think about it carefully because once you set your RAID level you can’t change it without destroying your data.
Expansion Unit
If 12 bays isn’t enough and you don’t want to move to a rack-mounted setup then there is also the option of adding in an expansion unit.
Every Synology comes with a form of expansion port at the back, usually in the shape of an eSATA cable. This is to connect to the multiple expansion units that Synology has to offer.
In particular, the DX1215II is well suited to the DS2419+II due to it having the same form factor. It’s a 12 bay desktop enclosure.
With the DX1215II expansion added on you can either set it up as a new volume on your network or expand your current NAS volume to include the expansion unit as part of it. This is part of the great Diskstation Manager service offered by Synology.
The DX1215II unit by itself and without disks does start at around $1,100/£1,000. Which is only around $400/£350 less than the DS2419+II itself. Do bear in mind though that your costs start to increase once you get into rack-mounted territory so this may well be a cost-effective way of having up to 24 bays and no additional setup needed.
The DX1215II 12-Bay Expansion Unit from Synology allows for maximum storage scalability while taking up minimal space on your desktop. The DX1215II provides an additional 12 drive bays that support SATA 3.5" hard drives, as well as 2.5" hard drives and solid-state drives.
SSD Cache
Ok, on to the SSD cache.
I’ve talked about SSD caches in the main article and a few other places around the site but SSD caches are transformative and highly underappreciated.
Why?
Because an SSD cache gives you the speed of an SSD-filled NAS but without having to fill your NAS with expensive and smaller storage-sized SSD disks.
An SSD cache gives the Synology NAS the ability to load and utilize your most frequently accessed data into the SSD disks within your NAS and leave the HDD disks for less frequently accessed data. It does this automatically and without you having to do a thing.
This is more speed and less expense. It’s a win-win.
To take it even one step further Synology has now brought out a new PCIe card that integrates not only two M.2 SSD slots but also a 10GbE port on it as well. It’s called the Synology E10M20-T1 and it costs around $260/£200.
Synology E10M20-T1 helps you boost I/O performance and network bandwidth simultaneously using just one PCIe expansion slot on your Synology NAS.
All you need to do to take advantage of this is slot the card into the available PCIe slot inside the Synology (you can do this at the same time as upgrading the RAM) and you will have two SSD disks and a new 10GbE port to get your DS2419+II capable of working with 4+ users at 4K real-time!
IronWolf M.2 NVMe SSD drives from Seagate come in a range of sizes but you should take as much advantage of this feature as possible and go for the largest size you can afford. The limit is around 2TB (1.92TB) per disk.
The ideal solution for multi-user NAS environments craving powerhouse SSD endurance and performance. Enjoy long-term reliability with 1.8M hours MTBF in a M.2 form factor.
For more information on the best drives for NAS enclosures then check out my article on IronWolf drives here:
Editing With the Synology DS2419+II
I’ve mentioned it before and you may have guessed by my enthusiasm in this article but getting your team onto and editing from a NAS is a gamechanger. The Synology DS2419+II in particular is an adept and powerful NAS that will be able to handle multiple users all accessing and editing from it.
If you throw in the 32GB RAM, 4TB SSD cache and 10GbE networking then your editing experience with this NAS will be like comparing chalk and cheese from the old days of editing from external drives. With 10GbE network connected you have a bandwidth capability of 10,000Mbps!
Remote Video Editing with Synology
With this post-pandemic world that we live in now, it’s worth talking about remote video editing using network-attached storage.
I’ve got a dedicated article on remote video editing with Synology but the need to know is that it’s definitely possible and with Synology Drive, you can set up an efficient and reliable remote video editing workflow for your team.
The Perfect NAS For a Medium-Large Size Team
As I’ve mentioned with four dedicated 1GbE LAN ports at the very least, this NAS is perfect for teams starting at 4 users and above.
Throw in the 10G networking and your team can grow to 10-12 with no issues whatsoever.
This really is a NAS that can grow with and expand with your team and its needs. Storage is also not an issue with the expansion unit above too.
Help at Hand
If you are interested in getting set up on a Synology NAS for your team but would like some tailored advice or even some personal help getting set up then I have consultancy services available to help you do just that.
Happy Editing
I hope your new way of working and editing on the DS920+ is an enjoyable one and that you find the workflow as transformative as I have.
Let me know in the comments how you find it once set up and any tips you may have for others looking at getting set up with the DS2419+II.
For another Synology NAS option for smaller setups, check out the Synology DS920+:
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